Alistair MacLean: Night Without End

"Drop that gun!" I whirled round at the sound of the voice behind me, but all I could see at first was the white strained face of Margaret Ross, the brown eyes dulled with sickness and fear. Involuntarily I brought up the rifle in my hands.

"Drop it!" Smallwood's voice was curt, deadly, his face barely visible behind Margaret's shoulder as he peered out through the canvas screen at the rear of the tractor cabin. He was completely shielded by her body—it was typical of the man's cunning, his ice-cold calculation that he should have waited until our attention was completely distracted before making his move. "And your friend. Quickly now!"

I hesitated, glanced at Hillcrest—the only other-man with a weapon—to see how he was placed, then jerked my head back again as there came a sudden plop from the silenced automatic and a sharp cry of pain from Margaret. She was clutching her left arm just below the elbow.

"Quickly, I said! The next one goes through her shoulder." His voice was soft with menace, his face implacable. Not for a moment did I doubt that he would do exactly as he said: the clatter of Hillcrest's rifle and mine falling on the ice came in the same instant.

"Now kick them over the edge of that crevasse."

We did as he said and stood there powerless to do anything except watch the savage, mauling fight on the glacier. Neither man had regained his feet since the struggle had begun, the ice was too slippery for that, and still they rolled over and over first one on top, now the other. Both were powerful men, but Zagero was severely handicapped by the exhaustion of the terrible night's march that lay behind him, by his crippled useless hands, by thickly-swathed bandages over his hands that not only prevented him from catching or holding Corazzini but softened the impact of every blow he struck. For all that, there was no question how the battle was going: those broken hands I'd said would never fight again were clubbing and hammering the life out of Corazzini. I thought of the tremendous force with which I'd seen Zagero strike a blow only the previous morning and felt a momentary flash of pity for Corazzini: then I remembered he was just as Smallwood was, that Smallwood was prepared to kill Margaret with as little compunction as he would snuff out the life of a fly, I looked at the crumpled figure at my feet and every shadow of pity vanished as if it had never been.

Smallwood, his eyes unblinking, his face expressionless as ever, had his gun on them all the time, waiting for that second when the two men would break far enough apart to give him a clear sight of Zagero. But, now, Zagero was underneath nearly all the time, one arm crooked round Corazzini's neck while the other delivered a murderous series of short-arm jabs, each one drawing a grunting gasp of agony from a white-faced Corazzini: finally, goaded into supreme effort by panic and fear, Corazzini managed to break loose and hurled himself not towards Smallwood, where safety lay, but for the shelter of the moraine rocks, where he would never know safety again. Zagero, cat-like as ever, was only feet behind him, moving so fast, so unexpectedly that Smallwood's swift snapshot missed him altogether.

"Call your friend Nielsen." Smallwood must have realised how things were going behind the concealing shelter of the rocks for his voice was suddenly savage, urgent. He spared a swift glance in Jackstraw's direction—Jackstraw, followed at some distance by two more of Hillcrest's crew, was crossing the glacier at a dead run and now less than fifty yards away. "His rifle. In a crevasse. Quickly!"

"Jackstraw!" My voice was hoarse, cracked. "Throw your rifle away! He's got a gun on Miss Ross, and he's going to kill her." Jackstraw braked, slipped on the ice, halted and stood there for a moment irresolute, and then at my repeated desperate cry carefully, deliberately dropped his rifle into a nearby fissure and came slowly on to join us. It was at that moment that Hillcrest grabbed me by the arm.

"He's moving, Mason! He's alive!" He was pointing down to Levin, who was indeed stirring slightly. I had never thought to examine Levin, it had seemed a ludicrous idea that a professional like Corazzini could have missed at such point-blank range, but now, regardless of Smallwood's reaction, I dropped to my knees on the glacier and put my face close to Levin's. Hillcrest was right. The breathing was shallow, but breathing there undoubtedly was, and now I could see the thin red line that extended from the temple almost to the back of the head. I rose to my feet.

"Creased, concussed probably, that's all." Involuntarily I glanced over my shoulder towards the rocks. "But too late now for Corazzini."

And I needed no eyes to know that this was so. The unseen battle behind the rocks had been fought out with a dumb feral ferocity, with a silent savagery that had been far more frightening than all the most maddened oaths and shouting could ever have been, but even now, as Smallwood jumped down from the tailboard of the tractor cabin, Margaret Ross still held in front of him, and started hustling her towards the rocks, a hoarse high-pitched scream that raised the hackles on the back of my neck froze us all, even Smallwood, to immobility: and then came a long quavering moan of agony, cut off as abruptly as it had begun. And now there was no more screaming or moaning, no more slipping of feet on ice, no more gasping or frenzied flurries bespeaking the interchange of desperate blows: there was only silence, a silence chillingly broken by regular rhythmic pounding blows like the stamping feet of a pile-driver.

Smallwood had recovered, had just reached the rocks when Zagero came out to meet him face to face. Smallwood moved to one side, his gun covering him, as Zagero came slowly towards us, his face cut and bruised, his blood-saturated bandaged hands hanging by his sides, with two long ribbons of red-stained bandage trailing on the ice behind him.

"Finished?" I asked.

"Finished."

"Good," I said, and meant it. "Your father's still alive, Johnny. Scalp wound, that's all."

His battered face transformed, first by disbelief then by sheer joy, Zagero dropped on his knees beside Solly Levin. I saw Smallwood line his pistol on Zagero's back.

"Don't do it, Smallwood!" I shouted. "You'll only have four shells left."

His eyes swivelled to my face, the cold flat eyes of a killer, then the meaning of my words struck home, his expression subtly altered and he nodded as if I had made some reasonable suggestion. He turned to Jackstraw, the nearest man to him, and said, "Bring out my radio."

Jackstraw moved to obey, and while he was inside the cabin Zagero rose slowly to his feet.

"Does look like I was a mite premature," he murmured. He glanced towards the rocks, and there was no regret in his face, only indifference. "Half a dozen witnesses, and 'you all saw him beatin' himself to death. . . . You're next, Smallwood."

"Corazzini was a fool," Smallwood said contemptuously. The man's cold-blooded callousness was staggering. "I can easily replace him. Just leave that radio here, Nielsen, and join your friends—while I join mine." He nodded down the glacier. "Or perhaps you hadn't noticed?"

And we hadn't. But we noticed it now all right, the first of the party from the trawler climbing on to the ice at the precipitous tip of the glacier. Within seconds half a dozen of them were on the ice, running, stumbling, falling, picking themselves up again as they clawed their way up the slippery ice with all the speed they could muster.

"My—ah—reception committee." Smallwood permitted himself the shadow of a smile. "You will remain here while Miss Ross and I make our way down to meet them. You will not move. I have the girl." Victory, complete and absolute victory was in his grasp, but his voice, his face were again devoid as ever of all shadow of expression or feeling. He stooped to pick up the portable radio, then swung round and stared up into the sky.